Guccio was alive, Guccio was in a safe place, and Tolomei knew where. What did the cloister matter to her now!
She was no longer listening to what her brother Jean was saying. She knew it all by heart. Even Pierre de Cressay sat silent, looking vaguely weary. Without daring to say so, he blamed himself for having also given way to anger. He was leaving it to his brother to convince himself that he had acted properly; he left it to Jean to speak of the honour of their blood and the laws of chivalry, so as to justify their immense folly.
When the Cressay brothers came from their poor little ramshackle manor, from their courtyard which stank of the dunghill all the year round, and saw Tolomei’s princely residence, the brocades, the silver bowls, when they felt beneath their fingers the delicate carving on the chairs and became aware of that atmosphere of wealth and abundance which permeated the whole house, they were forced to recognize that their sister would not have been so badly off if they left her to her own inclination. The younger one sincerely regretted it. ‘At least one of us would have been well provided for, and we should all have benefited,’ he thought. But the bearded one, with his stubborn nature, merely felt the more spite as well as a base jealousy. ‘Why should her sins give her a right to so much wealth through sinning, while we live so poorly?’
Nor was Marie insensible to the luxury around her; it dazzled her, and merely increased her regrets.
‘If only Guccio had been even a little noble,’ she thought, ‘or if we had not been noble at all! What does chivalry matter? Can it be a good thing, when it makes one suffer so much? And is not wealth a sort of nobility in itself? What is the difference between making serfs labour and making money work?’
‘You need have no concern, my friends,’ said Tolomei at last; ‘leave everything to me. It’s the duty of uncles to repair the faults committed by their wicked nephews. Thanks to my influential friends, I have succeeded in getting your sister accepted by the Royal Convent of the Daughters of Saint-Marcel. Does that satisfy you?’
The two Cressay brothers looked at each other and nodded their heads in approval. The Convent of the Clarisses in the Faubourg Saint-Marcel enjoyed the highest reputation among female religious establishments. It was almost entirely confined to the daughters of the nobility. And it was there that the royal family’s bastards were occasionally concealed behind the veil. Jean de Cressay’s ill-temper vanished at once, appeased by the vanity of caste. And, to show that the Cressays were not unworthy of what was being done for their sister in her sin, he added hastily: ‘Excellent, excellent; besides, I think the Abbess is some sort of a relation of ours; our mother has often quoted her to us as an example.’
‘Then everything is for the best,’ continued Tolomei. ‘I shall take your sister to Messire Hugues de Bouville, the ex-Grand Chamberlain …’
The two brothers bowed slightly in their chairs to show their respect.
‘… from whom I obtained this favour,’ Tolomei went on; ‘and tonight, I promise you, she shall be inside the convent. You can therefore go home reassured; I will keep you informed.’
The two brothers asked no better. They were getting rid of their sister, and thought that they had done enough by handing her over to the care of others. The silence of the cloister would close over the scandal which, at Cressay, need from now on be mentioned only in whispers, or not even be mentioned at all.
‘May God keep you and inspire you with repentance,’ said Jean to his sister by way of goodbye.
He put much more warmth into his farewell to Tolomei and thanked him for the trouble he was taking. He very nearly reproached Marie for the grief she was causing this excellent man.
‘God keep you, Marie,’ said Pierre with emotion.
He wanted to kiss his sister, but dared not do so under the severe eye of his elder brother. And Marie found herself alone with the fat banker with the dark complexion, the fleshy mouth and the closed eye, who, strange as it might seem, was her uncle.
The two horses left the courtyard and the roaring of the broken-winded nag could be heard growing fainter; it was the last sound of Cressay moving out of Marie’s ken.
‘And now, let us eat, my child. And while we dine, we don’t weep,’ said Tolomei.
He helped the girl take off the cloak which was suffocating her; Marie looked surprised and grateful, for it was the first mark of attention, or even of simple courtesy, she had been shown for many weeks.
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